On The Mild Temper, Kevin Drumm stretches his language of drones, electronics and micro‑acoustics across six hours, fashioning vast, slow‑shifting fields of frequency where restraint becomes a kind of pressure and detail blooms only if you stay. Mastered by Jim O'Rourke.
On Bidule 2.0, eRikm tunnels into a cache of unheard Pierre Henry tapes, feeding analog “sound objects” from 1950–1974 through his custom digital apparatus to forge a dense, flickering work where early musique concrète and present‑tense signal processing fold into one another.
Passionate about music from childhood, it wasn't until later, at the age of 22, after reading À la recherche d'une musique concrète by Pierre Schaeffer, that she decided to study composition. After classical training in harmony, she met Michel Puig, a pupil of René Leibowitz, who taught her writing and analysis upon Schönberg Theory. In 1970, she began a two-year internship at the Research Department of the ORTF under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer. Between 1973 and 1975, she took part in a r…
“Spuren & Gegenworte” began with a quasi-telepathic collaboration between KM and RW. Both recorded a track on May 3, 2021, from 8:00 PM to 8:10 PM. These recordings were subsequently transformed, combined, juxtaposed, and further modified over the course of several months, resulting in the completion of the four pieces on the CD. “Spuren & Gegenworte” can be translated as “traces & antonyms”, opening up a wide range of interpretations. “Traces” may refer to the remnants of the original sounds th…
Sheet Erosion is the third episode in a series of works based around ideas of audio archaeology and found sounds. The setting this time is the city of Brest in France.
It is composed of field recordings made in early 2020 during the storms Ciara and Desmond plus a batch of found open-reel tape recordings dating from the 70s and 80s. The tapes include domestic home recordings but mostly document the recordist, Michel's tastes in music and radio programmes of the time. Daily life bleeds into these…
"A puzzlingly great album. Ah, the halcyon days of bungled Kurt Weill renditions, overactive splicing hands and tape-loops lasting only a few seconds before being smudged by hyper fast-forwarding, like a random, operatic battle of thermopylae as re-created by members of NWW. Faced with omnipresent latter-day refined-aesthetic cognescenti, whose duty it is to remind one of the gravity of modern music, I find myself defending such gut-level joyous stupidity and its gung-ho determination to vertigi…
“On this, their second LP, P16.D4 solicited tapes from several artists from Europe, England, the U.S., Canada, and Japan, and mixed that with their own material. Though in the current digital age collaborations from artists thousands of miles apart is quite normal, this was a quite radical approach back in 1982, when work on this LP began – an interesting concept that actually works quite well, since these artists, which include Bladder Flask, DDAA, the Haters, Merzbow, Nocturnal Emissions, Nurs…
“Though this German group started out as a the new wave band P.D., by the time of Kuhe in 1/2 Trauer, their first LP under the P16.D4 name from 1984, they had developed far beyond into extremely experimental music similar to other post-industrial artists working with abstract avant-garde soundscapes. There’s a bleak industrial feel to the gritty, lo-fi electronics and tape loops, while the group throws in enough curve balls to keep it interesting. On some pieces, strange, looped choirs bubble ou…
"A puzzlingly great album. Ah, the halcyon days of bungled Kurt Weill renditions, overactive splicing hands and tape-loops lasting only a few seconds before being smudged by hyper fast-forwarding, like a random, operatic battle of thermopylae as re-created by members of NWW. Faced with omnipresent latter-day refined-aesthetic cognescenti, whose duty it is to remind one of the gravity of modern music, I find myself defending such gut-level joyous stupidity and its gung-ho determination to vertigi…
“On this, their second LP, P16.D4 solicited tapes from several artists from Europe, England, the U.S., Canada, and Japan, and mixed that with their own material. Though in the current digital age collaborations from artists thousands of miles apart is quite normal, this was a quite radical approach back in 1982, when work on this LP began – an interesting concept that actually works quite well, since these artists, which include Bladder Flask, DDAA, the Haters, Merzbow, Nocturnal Emissions, Nurs…
“Though this German group started out as a the new wave band P.D., by the time of Kuhe in 1/2 Trauer, their first LP under the P16.D4 name from 1984, they had developed far beyond into extremely experimental music similar to other post-industrial artists working with abstract avant-garde soundscapes. There’s a bleak industrial feel to the gritty, lo-fi electronics and tape loops, while the group throws in enough curve balls to keep it interesting. On some pieces, strange, looped choirs bubble ou…
Rlw (aka Ralf Wehowsky ) whose work deals in the transformation of prerecorded sound material, the permutation of the senses and the metamorphosis of the sensitive, has been a proponent of long distance collaborations for decades, long before lockdown made this manner of working popular. This goes way back to his beginnings with Permutative Distortion or P16.D4 and the Selektion label. He is a strict and disciplined composer, a formal organizer of discernible objects.Tunnel presents five pieces …
* 2 LPS, gatefold cover, cut at 45rpm. With 3 bonus tracks exclusive for this vinyl edition * “Larme secrète” is the result of an astonishing encounter between a minimal and discreet musician attracted as much by Erik Satie as he is by various pop classics, and a poet/performer who has worked with Lydia Lunch, Genesis P-Orridge , Michael Gira as well as Alan Vega. Pascal Comelade et Marc Hurtado (Étant Donnés) are two important figures of a french underground and alternative music scene which h…
* Limited LP edition * Sonoris is pleased to announce the release both on vinyl and cd, with a new mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi, of some important works from the influential and respected artist Steve Roden. These tracks, which mix conceptual composition and musicality, transcend the ambient or lowercase categories too quickly applied to his music, due to its ghostly beauty. In the tradition of John Cage’s Cartridge Music amplified objects, Steve Roden extracts a fine and delicate music through …
* Limited LP edition * Highly electrified guitar, anamorphosed, perforated, and tainted by all sorts of effects, implodes its rage and its urgency in the magnetic nets of a tape recorder as cannibal as it is destructive. From various recordings Lionel Fernandez & Jérôme Noetinger have created and produced these ten pieces: big, biting, dangerous and acerbic – like the intoxicated meeting of a chainsaw and a microphone. Real garage music: grease, gutted car bodies and outdated alternators, like a…
**A 4+ hours labyrinthine work, previously unreleased** Jim O’Rourke is among the great voices of his generation - a true musical polymath, whose diverse efforts, since his emergence within the Chicago scene during the late 1980s, have continuously altered the creative landscape. Without him - from his relentless support of the careers of neglected artists, to contributions made within the vast and radical diversity of his output - now tracing across hundreds of releases - so much of what is, co…
“Jeu du monde” is a collection of around twenty musique concrète pieces which spreads over more than six hours of music. Each CD has been designed as an audio film which tells a full story. The box set includes previously released works which have long been unavailable, reworked versions of digital releases, as well as unreleased pieces especially composed for this occasion. With the use of a complex sound palette ( synthesizers, analog and digital manipulation, percussion, low fidelity samplers…
CD in a Digipak. Inexplicable Hours is the sequel of the successful Kevin Drumm 6CD box 'Elapsed Time' also released by Sonoris last year. The first record documents a new direction in his music, with some of his last electroacoustic experimentations with audio generators, field recordings and various electronic devices. The second one explores the same ambient/drone territories as the boxset, but less static and more complex than it appears after a superficial listening. And as always with rece…
On A Thousand Breathing Forms, Steve Roden’s 2003–2008 archive blooms across six discs of loop‑based miniatures, conceptual structures and quietly lyrical instrumentals, charting a mid‑period where lowercase intimacy, rigor and melody fuse into one breathing organism.
A landmark! "Elapsed Time" is undoubtedly destined to be a classic, and one of the finest experimental tomes to emerge over the last years. Kevin Drumm array of releases have traversed the auditory spectrum, roaming from tension-ridden ambient and electro-acoustic suites through to massively distorted, dense and decimating guitar and synth compositions. But despite his noisy reputation, KD music can be overwhelmingly sensual even at its loudest, providing a form of minimalism replete with a de…
On Every Color Moving (1988–2003), Steve Roden’s first 15 years unfold across six discs: from noisy, searching experiments to the hushed, “lowercase” worlds that would define his quietly radical, object‑based approach to sound and space.
'Rabid' consists of six tracks mixed by Phillip B. Klingler, aka PBK, between 2004-06 using Wolf Eyes source material, this is the Wolf Eyes lineup of 2000-05: Nate Young, John Olson and Aaron Dilloway. Klingler: 'I was given the audio sources (via cdr) by John Olson at the Ear Candy Festival in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2004. None of the compositions on the album were completed using a computer, they were all recorded live in my home studio or at gigs and radio shows directly to digital. Three of …
L'art de la fuite is a selection of first recordings originally released on selftitled homemade tape in 1995 by eRikm. Mainly composed with turntables and prepared records (with various other sources), these recordings have laid the foundation for his future work as turntabilist / improviser / composer. 20 years later, this unique blend of musique concrète and post-industrial still sounds fresh today. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. 300 copies.
"Certain musicians names can speak for themselves, before even a note of music has been played. Their reputations proceed them, although of course there will also be those ignorant of both reputation and name. David Maranha - solo or with Osso Exotico - explores the territories opened up half a century ago by John Cale and Tony Conrad. Z'ev is the grandmaster of industrial/ tribal percussion. The fusion they create together is a magma of movement and stasis before which only legless cripp…
The three piece group from Portugal explore in ten tracks the possibilities of the church organ. The members play in various combinations on different organs. The outcome is very varied. The opening piece is barely audible, but the second piece is a loud, repitive, all register open one. Of course it's hard to see this music without any religious overtones, but Osso Exotico don't give a clue in that direction: all their pieces are untitled. Meditative pieces in most cases, but less minimal then …
This record gathers a selection of recent compositions from the french electroacoustic composer J.M. Rivet. His work follows the path of french pioneers of ‘musique concrète’ with an emphasis on the intrinsic beauty of captured sounds and poetic compositions that let your imagination go – very far from standardazed today production from well-established studios in France or in Canada. Each track focuses on one sound source from daily life (trains, a demonstration, a voice, …) and tells a story t…
'Behind bowline we find the more and more present musician David Maranha, who was once best known as Osso Exotico, and these days also works as a solo musician and one Francesco Dillon. He is from Italy and studied the cello. These days he is a member of Alter-Ego (see Vital Weekly 602 for their work with Gavin Bryars) as well as playing with people like Matmos, Pan Sonic and Scanner. A man of many talents. Here too Dillon plays cello, whereas Maranha gets credit for 'hammond organ, violin, vox …
Kozo Inada is a japanese sound artist who has previously released records on various labels around the world (Staalplaat, Selektion, Digital Narcis, V2). His last record published is a collaborative work with Philip Samartzis on the australian label Room40.His music is a balance between austere minimalism and immense spaces in sound that creates a very strong tension and keeps the listener captivated from the beginning to the end.For J[], he uses samples and loops of classical music as sound mat…
Poire Z is almost like a super group, as it’s collaborative work between drummer Gunter Muller, electronics by Erik M and the cracked everyday electronics of Moslang and Guhl – the latter two known as Voice Crack. Presented here are two lengthy and heavy weighted pieces recorded at two different festivals. Overall the music is densely layered (although I can’t say if this is a straight recording or a mixed multi-track version; I assume the first) which moves into various places and spaces. Small…
2001 release ** "For his first CD, Laurent Grappe has created a fascinating electro-acoustic tale. Le Luxe de la Réflexion! (The Luxury of Reflection!) blurs distinctions between field recording and acousmatics, urban and rural, French and Arab. At the center of the work is Isabelle Bassil, a Lebanese woman splitting her time between France and Lebanon. Her life experience, bridging two cultures, provides the main thread. Her interventions are spoken in Arab and other protagonists speak French, …
Some records will please you, others will disturb or mystify you. And then some rare specimens will extend your conception of life. Michael Prime's l-fields is of the latter category. The source material on l-fields consists of bioelectrical recordings of hallucinogenic plants. Yep. Prime records the fluctuations of the electric guitar field of a plant, fluctuations that trigger an oscillator. Prime later compresses, overlays, and integrates sounds from the surrounding environment to the signal …
Reissue of this 1999 release and out of print since a long time. Some reviews at the time of release : ' After a tentative opening consisting of damp harmonic scrapes, the piece takes off like a single-engined light aircraft when David Maranha kickstarts his four-motored Piano effect and then starts to tease single notes from the bubbling background with his bow. This is a great and physically affecting slab of sound, where the slightest minimal shift causes tectonic plates to groan. It's gravy …
long out of print, Produced in part by the Center for the Diffusion of Contemporary Music (CDMC), and the Spanish National Radio (RNE). Recordings made between 1990-1996 in tropical and sub-tropical forests of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Senegal, Gambia, and China. Composed during fall of 1996 at Messor Studios and Musica 2 Studio, RNE, Madrid.
cardboard digipack edition, 11-page booklet features recording details and discography. All the tracks had appeared on different compilations (from X / 1982 to VII / 1986) before they where restored and compiled during 1986 for Tiochor which was released II / 1987 as LP (Selektion SLP 013). Three bonus tracks (recorded 1987 - 1991 ; N° 16 - 18) have been added for this CD reissue